


And Never Left Your Side

by afteriwake



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Best Friends, Bonding, Epic Friendship, Eventual Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Bones, Hurt Kirk, Inspired by a Movie, James T. Kirk Has Issues, Male Friendship, POV Kirk, Poor Bones, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Protective James, Worried Leonard McCoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nearly four years into the five year mission in deep space, Kirk gets asked to return to Earth to bring a Klingon Chancellor to Earth for peace negotiation talks. He's fairly sure it's a set-up for retribution for the fight that happened on Kronos between the Klingons, Khan and him and his away team, and unfortunately he's right. While he and Bones struggle to survive at the hostile Rura Penthe mines, little does he know that behind the scenes his friends and the Federation are doing everything they can to get them back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenSkyOverMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSkyOverMe/gifts).



> So among the many people who have helped me out over the last few months has been the utterly amazing **greenskyoverme** , who has requested pretty much nothing but Star Trek: AOS fic. And finally, I can start giving it to her! This story is supposed to be 25K but I'm not sure it will be that long (but I will try). It's going to be based on the TOS movie "The Undiscovered Country," which one was on the ones I liked more when I was a kid (I have a love/hate relationship with TOS for personal reasons). Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this, hun, and I'm sorry it's taken so long to start it. Title comes from [this](http://s2.postimg.org/en4wwl5dl/149460_447395008673280_83572191_n_large.jpg) image my mom shared on my Facebook page a few weeks back (so I'm not sure where the quote comes from or who to credit).

**Stardate 6458.716**

It was hard to sleep. It was years later and still, it was hard to sleep. Images replayed themselves in his mind and some nights he bolted awake, not sure whether he was going to find himself in his quarters on the Enterprise or whether he was going to be back in the hospital room, waking up after two weeks in a coma after a miraculous resurrection from the dead. Some night he’d just ease out of it, blinking and aware that he was in the Enterprise and he was out in deep space and Marcus was dead and Khan was back in a cryotube and it was all in the past.

Not that that usually made him feel any better.

That was when he usually got up and did…stuff. During the year they’d been waiting for the repairs to be made to the enterprise everyone had had their own ways of trying to help him deal with what had happened. Spock had said to go with the mandated counseling session.

Those really hadn’t helped. Well, in a way they _had_ , kind of, but not really. But he’d been good at conning people. He’d had years of practice growing up, charming his way out of trouble. He’d had no problem convincing his counselor he’d made serious strides on the road to dealing with all this when he’d really just made about a quarter mile up the mountainside trek.

God. Now he sounded like Bones with his metaphors, he thought to himself as he got out of bed and made his way to the closet where his uniforms hung. He pulled out the small rubber mat and then rolled it out on the ground. He’d gotten some _very_ curious looks the first time he’d stepped foot in the yoga class that was held on board the ship, being the only male in attendance. Most of the women thought he was only there to check them out, especially when he situated himself in the back. But gradually they realized he didn’t care about them and ogling them. He was there to actually find his calm through the yoga.

That had been something Uhura, Carol and Sulu had suggested. He’d scoffed at first, protested pretty heavily, but eventually Uhura had dragged him to one of her mixed level classes and once he really gave it a shot he realized it helped. Clearing his mind, focusing on the poses…it helped ground him. Sulu helped give him some meditation techniques his fencing trainer had suggested for before matches. When Spock found out what they were doing, he suggested a few Vulcan techniques that humans should be able to replicate easily enough.

What his friends did for him helped get him further up the mountainside than anything the professionals did.

Still, he had a long way to go.

But being in space helped. The five year mission was a good thing, and now they were nearing the end of their fourth year in space. It was much nearer the time to go back home than it was the time to keep exploring. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that, to be honest. Before Pike had plucked him out of Iowa, he’d honestly given two shits about being out among the stars like his dad had. Now he couldn’t think of being anywhere else. Being back in San Francisco after five years in uncharted space was going to be…strange, if nothing else.

He had a lot to think about, but he needed to clear his mind first. He unrolled his mat and then began to go through the steady flow of poses. He’d just gotten into Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana when he there was a beep. “Captain,” he heard the communications officer who relieved Uhura when she was asleep say.

“Yes?” he said.

There was a pause. He was fairly sure the young Lieutenant was probably wondering why he wasn’t asleep. “There’s a message from Admiral Sulu. She says it’s urgent.”

He bit back a sigh and then got out of the pose and back into an upright position. “Let me change and I’ll be right there,” he said. He stretched slightly, enjoying the looseness in his muscles, and then went to change into his uniform. It didn’t take very long. He combed his hair, styling it quickly; most times if he got a message at four in the morning he didn’t bother but as this was Admiral Sulu and she was Marcus’s replacement he wanted to at least look presentable. Bedhead probably wouldn’t do the trick.

Once he was ready he took the lifts to the Sulu and was greeted with “Captain on the bridge” before he looked over and saw Spock in his familiar position. He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you ever go to sleep?”

“I only need four hours of rest for optimal functioning,” Spock said. “Uhura prefers to go to sleep between 2200 and 2300 so I am usually back on the bridge by 0300.”

Kirk shook his head. “And she isn’t upset you aren’t there when she wakes up in the morning?” he asked.

“I time a break for when she wakes up at 0600,” Spock said. 

Kirk gave him a wry grin and a shake of the head. “I don’t think I’m ever going to understand you two,” he said. He looked over and saw it was all second shift crew. “It feels strange without the rest of the crew.”

“All of these crew members are competent,” Spock said. “I’ve ensured that.”

“I hope so,” Kirk said. He turned to the Lieutenant at communications. “Put Admiral Sulu on the screen.”

He nodded and flipped a switch as Kirk sat down in his chair. After a moment a woman’s face showed up on the monitors. She was an Asian woman with black hair pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck and a small frown on her face. Kirk gave her a nod. “Admiral Sulu.”

“Captain Kirk,” she said. Her frown deepened slightly. “My nephew is asleep, I take it?”

Kirk grinned slightly at that and nodded. “He’s on our first shift. That’s where we put our best and brightest. Not that our second shift isn’t good as well.”

She nodded. “Ah,” she said.

“It’s a bit early for us,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

She leaned forward slightly. “We’ve begun to get overtures from high ranking officials in the Klingon Empire that they want to work out peace accords with the United Federation of Planets. The Klingon Chancellor, Chancellor Ch'jehlat, would like an escort to Earth but he’s a bit out of the way for any starships in the area. The Enterprise is closest so we would like you to pick him and his entourage up and escort them to Earth for the negotiations, which have been scheduled to start on stardate 6471.517.”

Kirk looked at her. “Admiral, the Klingons _are_ aware of what happened on Kronos, right? Between us and them and Khan? Is it safe for me and my crew to be an escort?”

“I have been assured that they are not aware that it was you specifically that was on Kronos,” Admiral Sulu said. “All they know is that it was a Starfleet Captain who had been tricked by a renegade Starfleet Admiral who was trying to start a war. Chancellor Ch'jehlat has said the Klingon Empire holds Admiral Marcus responsible, not the Captain.”

Kirk was quiet for a moment as brief glimpses of the fight on Kronos flashed through his mind. He shut his eyes and gave his head a shake, and then opened them again. “All right. Send us the coordinates and the stardate of when we need to pick up the Chancellor and his entourage and we’ll be there.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Admiral Sulu said, giving Kirk a smile before ending the transmission.

Kirk glanced over to Spock, who was giving him a strange look. “What?” Spock asked.

Spock got up and came over to the captain’s chair, standing slightly behind it. “I do not like this,” Spock said quietly.

“I’m not too keen on the idea either, but…if we can get peace with the Klingons, stop this war Marcus wanted to start, shouldn’t we?” Kirk asked, looking up at him. Spock didn’t respond verbally, but he nodded. Kirk looked away then, back to the view of the stars in front of him. Somehow he had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he brushed it aside. He’d deal with it later. Right now, he’d wait for his crew to wake up and then make plans. Somehow, he had the feeling he didn’t have much time before Chancellor Ch'jehlat was to be their guest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Stardate 6459.255**

He hadn’t gone back to sleep, closeting himself in his quarters with Spock and a rather grouchy Bones, who hadn’t appreciated being woken up to hash out details of a plan he didn’t agree with to go pick up a Klingon Chancellor. Surprisingly, though, Bones stayed relatively quiet in his objections while they were hashing out the details and while they presented them to the rest of the core crew. 

The others, however, did not. 

He wasn’t surprised, of course. Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, Carol, Uhura…they’d all lived through what Khan had put them through with him. They knew full well that the Klingons could be setting up a massive trap for revenge. Hell, he wasn’t putting it past them, to be honest. He knew he could be walking into something that could get him killed. That was why he’d been insistent he go more or less alone. And they’d all pitched a fit at that, saying it was idiotic and foolhardy. But he’d seen Pike do it with Nero. He knew it was what a good Captain did: he would sacrifice himself for his crew if need be, and if this was a trap, then he would sacrifice himself for his crew as any good captain would. He hadn’t fired the damn missiles at Khan like he could have, so he’d pay the price for that.

Even if he’d already paid the ultimate price once before, the niggling voice in the back of his head said. He quashed that down. He’d do it over and over again, pay that price a million times, any time it was asked, if he could keep the people in this room safe. They were more than his crew. They were his family. And he’d do whatever it took to protect his family.

He dismissed them and they all got out of the room and left, all of them except McCoy. McCoy sat and stared at him, his gaze defiant. “You’re an idiot,” he said.

Kirk sighed and dropped down into his seat, letting out a sigh as he slouched. He should have known Bones would have an opinion and he’d make it known. “Let it all out,” he said.

“It a trap. You know it in your gut it’s a trap. And yet you’re walking into it with eyes wide open and a damn hand tied behind your back,” he said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table. “Minimal security crew? No phasers? No actual high ranking crew? I mean, I can understand wanting to leave the pointy eared bastard on board because you know it’s a trap and you want someone competent in charge to get us back home in one piece, but…Jim, you’re offering yourself up like a trussed up turkey for a Thanksgiving feast. You’re going to show up and they’re going to _know_ you know it’s a trap.”

“And I think that’s going to be the only thing that keep them from killing me on sight,” he said. He leaned his head back against the back of the chair. “You weren’t on Kronos. I don’t know Klingon that well, not half as well as Nyota, but she couldn’t have been saying anything insulting. She’s too smart for that. And the guy was going to kill her anyway. And they didn’t know we were Starfleet at the time. At least I don’t think they did. Hell, if it wasn’t for Khan, we’d be dead.” He watched McCoy’s jaw set at the mention of the man’s name. “Point is, they have honor. They have to know I was there, despite what Admiral Sulu says. I doubt _he_ killed them all. That…we…killed them all.”

McCoy ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, you have a point. But you’re still an absolute moron for not bringing at least one high ranking crew member with you. So I’m going.”

Kirk lifted his head up, blinking. “What?”

“You heard me,” McCoy said with a shrug. “I’m going. Besides, if they’re as brutal as you say they are, you or some of the redshirts may need medical attention.”

“Or you might,” Kirk said.

“I can keep my temper in check,” McCoy said with a glare.

Kirk snorted. “Since when?”

“Four years in space without murdering you,” McCoy said. “There’s your proof.” 

Kirk shook his head, a small grin on his face. “Bones…” He looked as though he was going to crack a joke, but then he reached over and put a hand on McCoy’s shoulder, squeezing it. “Thanks.”

“Hey, you make the stupid decisions. I clean up the mess. That’s how our friendship works.” McCoy stood up. “I suppose I should get ready, leave instructions for the med bay in my absence, all that crap.”

Kirk nodded. “You take care of what you need to take care of,” he said. He watched his friend leave the conference room, and then after a moment he got u and went to the window, looking out at the view in front of him. He wondered what would happen, whether he would ever see the Enterprise again, see his crew, be around his family. He knew he needed to do this, to keep them safe. Perhaps, if he was lucky, this might stave off harsher retribution from the Klingons in the future.

Maybe, but probably not.

He sighed, and then made his way out of the conference room to the bridge. Until it was time for the trap to be sprung, he was still captain of the Enterprise. There was still time for him to spend on his ship, still time for him to fulfill his duties as Captain James T. Kirk. He should make the most of them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Stardate 6458.716**

To be honest, it really felt like it was too damn early in the morning for all this, but that was probably because he hadn’t slept the night before. He had catnapped a little, catching maybe a half hour at a time here and there, but the weight of what he was about to do had pressed down on him and kept him from getting any _real_ rest, so he’d given up at 0100 in the morning and spent an hour or so in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his mind whirring of everything that could go wrong. All the worst case scenarios that ran through his head just got progressively worse, but they all seemed to end with him surrounded by piles of dead bodies and being the lone survivor, unable to save anyone else.

He’d slowly given up alcohol during the year between waking up after dying and the Enterprise being recommissioned, but today his fingers itched for a drink. He knew a shot of good old whiskey or three could probably steady his nerves but he’d instead gotten up and pulled down the yoga mat, doing the poses in nothing more than his boxers, just trying to find some sort of inner peace if he could. It helped a little, but the feeling in the pit of his stomach told him today his whole world was going to be shot to hell and there wasn’t much he could do about it.

But at least this time he could try and walk in eyes open, see if he could put his charm to use, negotiate a way to keep those going with him safe. The security detail knew they were probably walking into a trap and there was a good chance they weren’t coming home. None of them had families back on Earth, none of them had sweethearts or people who would particularly miss them. There were letters in his desk, handwritten on stationary, to be delivered to people that they’d asked for Spock to have them sent to, just in case of the worst-case scenario.

There was a letter there, too, for McCoy’s daughter Joanna. He knew his harpy of an ex-wife probably wouldn’t let her have it if it was given to her now, but it was in an envelope with a note for Spock to make sure she got it when the girl turned eighteen, so she’d know that her dad was a good man, one of the best he’d ever known, and he’d volunteered to come with him so that he didn’t have to go alone. To die alone, if that’s what ended up happening. And that she should be proud of him, no matter what her mother might have to say about him, because he did good things. He kind of hoped that maybe he’d get the chance to deliver the letter by hand years and years and years in the future under totally different circumstances, but...he didn’t know.

Finally, he couldn’t put it off anymore. It was time to start setting everything up, getting it all ready. Time to go on the bridge and begin his last functions as Captain of the Enterprise before he turned command over to Spock. He began to get dressed in his uniform, looking at the gold shirt and really studying it. He had done so much to become Captain, but there were times he wondered if he really deserved it. Oh, he’d given up a lot, given up his life. And he’d saved the Enterprise and he’d saved San Francisco, that wasn’t up for debate. But did he _deserve_ it? Or was he some brash punk who showboated his way into the position?

He pushed the thought away and got ready. The meeting was set for 0900 on board the Klingon ship, so he had five hours, but there were still preparations. Just because the other times command had been transferred had been on the fly didn’t mean they couldn’t use this time to plan everything to make sure if it all went to hell like they were 95% sure it would the Enterprise couldn’t get out of there safely. Spock may have to abandon him and Bones and the security detail, but the lives of the many outweighed the lives of the few, as he was fond of saying, and on this occasion, Kirk had to agree.

Once he was properly attired he made his way to the bridge. He was expecting to see the second shift crew but no, his family was there. Chekov and Sulu were at the controls, Spock was at his station, Carol and Uhura at theirs. Even Scotty and McCoy were on the bridge, though they both looked a bit awkward at being there. Kirk relaxed when Chekov said “Captain on the bridge!” as he saw that they would be there for him at the end, whatever it might be.

Kirk nodded towards his Ensign. “Any sign of the Klingon ship?” he asked.

“None, Captain,” he replied.

Kirk sat in the Captain’s chair as Spock came forward, and then he looked up at Spock. “Captain, are you absolutely sure you wish to continue with this plan?” Spock asked in a low voice, his tone slightly unsure.

Kirk nodded. “If they want their revenge, they’ll get it, but I’m not about to let them take it out on the Enterprise,” he replied.

“But taking Dr. McCoy with you?” Spock asked, casting a glance at Bones.

“He insisted,” Kirk said. “He wants to be there to fix any damage he can that they might inflict.” Kirk was quiet for a moment. “Look, just in case it all goes to Hell...there are letters, in my quarters. Make sure they get delivered, except the one with your name. Follow the directions in that one and deliver it in a couple years, okay?”

Spock nodded slightly. “Yes, Captain,” he said, moving away from Kirk. He turned his head and glanced over at McCoy, who frowned but nodded, giving a silent show of support. Kirk nodded back, and then turned to the view in front of them of empty space. Now, all that was left to do was wait, he supposed.

Hopefully, the waiting wouldn’t be too torturous.


End file.
